Channel Surfer: Tonight's TV

What's going on with Elena (Nina Dobrev) after last season's cliffhanger of The CW's "The Vampire Diaries"? Find out with tonight's fourth-season premiere.

There's just time for a quick look at tonight's TV. I'm heading to the KACV studios shortly to watch a taping of a conversation between Ellen Robertson Green and "The Worst Hard Time" author Timothy Egan.

Fortunately, outside of some notable season premieres and one debut, there's not much on tonight aside from the vice presidential debate between Vice President Joe Biden and Republican challenger Paul Ryan (8 p.m., all major networks and news channels).

That said, tonight's new shows are a great deal of fun.

Let's start with The CW's "The Vampire Diaries" (7 p.m., cable channel 11) and its fourth-season debut. I finished catching up on the first three seasons over the summer, and I see now why so many find the show to be irresitable. It's just plain nuts. The showrunners have no compuction about killing major characters (though, on a vampire show, that doesn't necessarily mean they'll stay dead) or tossing out major plot twists in almost every episode. It's a full-on adrenaline rush style of storytelling that, after four years, should be slipping, but based on the first two episodes of this season, the quality is still high.

Following that is the debut of The CW's revamping of the '80s cult classic "Beauty and the Beast" (8 p.m., cable channel 11). I haven't had time to watch the premiere yet, and to be frank with you, I'm not necessarily looking forward to it. I didn't watch the original show in the day (and watching them now on Netflix didn't hook me), but I'm impressed with the way it built a plausible romance between its leads, despite the fact that the guy looked like a walking and talking lion.

The beast in the new version, played by Jay Ryan, doesn't even remotely resemble his predecessor. In fact, he just looks like one of the blandly handsome male leads on any number of CW shows, only he has a scar on his face. Blah blah blah "inner torment" yada yada -- who cares? You don't call a guy with a mug like Ryan's a beast and expect anyone to believe you.

On "Sunny," Dennis (Glenn Howerton) and Dee (Kaitlin Olson) must decide whether to pull the plug on their Nazi war criminal grandfather, while the rest of the gang searches for his reputed Nazi treasure.

"The League" gets off to a slower start (especially if you watch for the jokes, not the football references), but things come together nicely once Jenny (Katie Aselton) is about to deliver her baby.

Also on:

Prosser (Robert Patrick) is released from the brig on ABC's "Last Resort" (7 p.m., cable channel 8), but can he be trusted?